The Art of Critical Making: Rhode Island School of Design on Creative Practice - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

ROSANNE SOMERSON is the Provost at Rhode Island School of Design. A professor for more than 25 years, she has lectured in museums, conferences, corporations, and schools across the world. She has maintained her own studio since 1978 and has exhibited work extensively in museums throughout the United States and internationally including the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Louvre in Paris.

MARA L. HERMANO is Executive Director of Strategic Planning and Academic Initiatives at Rhode Island School of Design. Trained as an art historian, she has focused her career on the intersection of art and design, culture, and higher education

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As the world grows increasingly complex and fast-paced, with global issues impacting us all, making, materials, and meaning are critical. The kind of essential knowing that we develop at RISD informed through our hands, through our bodies, and in the creation of works, experiences, and events is more cogent than at any other time. Artists and designers hone the capacity to generate something from deep inside ourselves to live outside of ourselves. By residing in the experiential and the physical, and by developing the "hands-on" as a portal of intelligent learning, we confirm the mind as maker and making as a state of mindfulness. We demonstrate how artists and designers are hosts for enduring creative discovery that is self-initiated and actively engaged. In short, artists and designers manifest what has not existed previously in many cases, what has never even been imagined.
RISD PROVOST ROSANNE SOMERSON, EXCERPT FROM THE INTRODUCTION

I believe that art and design have critical roles to play in innovation in this next century, much like science and technology did in the last. The very methods revealed in this book will drive the new ideas, movements, and solutions that will help us tackle the complex problems of our day.
RISD PRESIDENT JOHN MAEDA, EXCERPT FROM THE FOREWORD

Aus dem Klappentext

At Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), students are immersed in a culture of "critical making," in which the hand and mind combine to envision and create essential objects, experiences, and meanings. Consistently ranked as the number-one college of its kind in the United States, RISD is a leader in the field of art and design education. Its value, however, extends far beyond art and design, suggesting models significant to anyone seeking to contextualize, navigate, and transform increasingly complex cultures, structures, and networks.

In The Art of Critical Making, RISD faculty and staff guide the reader through RISD's approach to education and innovation. Chapters explore subjects including the origin of the hand-brain connection; the foundational lessons of "critical making"; the role of designers as curators of information; the human-nature relationship; the deep purpose of drawing, materials, and critique; and how partnered projects invite businesses to engage with RISD's educational resources.

This book illuminates how RISD nurtures creative practice, from initial spark to finished outcome. In these in-depth accounts, readers will discover methods and tools that will generate their own critical making, helping to:

• Frame critical questions through an iterative process
• Apply hands-on, embodied approaches to problems
• Enhance seeing through closer looking
• Meet uncertainty with flexibility
• Evaluate and articulate the significance of one's work
• Generate ethical responses to global needs

For creative innovators?whether business people, practicing artists and designers, prospective students of art and design, or educators?The Art of Critical Making will inspire new and rigorous ways of thinking and making. Readers will gain insight into how "critical making" can be a generative, transformative act essential to our collective experience.